selden - 10/10/2006 6:32 AMThe editorial certainly looks reasonable to me, but I'm biased My only quibble is with the doubt expressed about people being serious about relocating to as inhospitable a location as Mars. While a permanent stay may be more than many are prepared for, every year people live for months in an envronment that's just as isolated and almost as inhospitable: the South Pole Station.
British NASA - 11/10/2006 5:52 AMHi Jon. Did I read it right that you think NASA TV and NASA.gov are actually doing great and are not responsible for the problem with communicating the VSE? I think they could do a lot more!
meiza - 11/10/2006 8:07 AMNot talk about the damn spinoffs as the reason for spaceflight...
HailColumbia - 11/10/2006 7:14 AM I do like the idea of the "news reels" before the movies. I seem to remember them doing somthing similar with the mars rovers, made it look like a preview for an action movie. Although I'm not sure if that was actually shown in theaters or just posted online. It is sort of blurring togehter with the IMAX "roving mars" movie.
The action movie you're probably talking about is the upcoming "Transformers." In the preview, you see a Mars Rover (incorrectly referred to as the lost "Beagle 2". Thanks Michael Bay) at the beginning of the trailer, and while it's roving the Martian surface, a huge robot (don't know if it's an Autobot or a Decepticon, haha) stomps on it or something. I read something about movie audiences not knowing what the heck was going on till the Transformers logo came up on screen.
By the way, I didn't know the Martian sky was blue. Thanks again, Michael Bay.
punkboi - 11/10/2006 12:48 PMQuoteHailColumbia - 11/10/2006 7:14 AM I do like the idea of the "news reels" before the movies. I seem to remember them doing somthing similar with the mars rovers, made it look like a preview for an action movie. Although I'm not sure if that was actually shown in theaters or just posted online. It is sort of blurring togehter with the IMAX "roving mars" movie. The action movie you're probably talking about is the upcoming "Transformers." In the preview, you see a Mars Rover (incorrectly referred to as the lost "Beagle 2". Thanks Michael Bay) at the beginning of the trailer, and while it's roving the Martian surface, a huge robot (don't know if it's an Autobot or a Decepticon, haha) stomps on it or something. I read something about movie audiences not knowing what the heck was going on till the Transformers logo came up on screen.By the way, I didn't know the Martian sky was blue. Thanks again, Michael Bay.
Dobbins - 11/10/2006 12:26 PMOne thing to keep in mind is NASA's hands are tied by law. Government agencies can't engage in politics and that includes self promotion. NASA gets away with a lot under it's education mandate but the final job of promoting the VSE and other areas belongs to space advocates. Here are some thoughts on space advocacy.First of all there is no magic bullet that will get everyone to support the VSE or any other program. Even at the height of the Cold War "Beating the Commies in space" didn't garner universal support for the space program. Different people have different concerns. You have to have to have a variety of messages to cover these differing concerns.One big problem is preaching to the Choir. Far too many space advocates limit their advocacy to space sites where just about everyone is a "member of the choir", that is they already support space exploration. You have to reach those people that never go to sites like NASA Space Flight to increase the support for space exploration.Avoid "Geek Speak". When you start using terms like "OV-103" and an alphabet soup of acronyms the general public's eyes glaze over and they quickly quit listening to you. Use common terms as much as possible.Keep the audience in mind. If you are trying to reach a "People" Magazine type audience you are wasting your time discussing a bunch of technical details, you need to talk about things like amusing stories about astronauts or even the astronaut's wives.